Andrew Pell: Pai

After 5 great days in Chiang Mai we again headed north to a small hippy town called Pai (pronounced 'bye', not 'pie'). A 4 hour bus trip through some beautiful and hilly countryside saw us arrive in Pai. We checked into a very comfortable bungalow just off the main drag and it seemed this funky villiage town was very quiet. However, come night time food stalls were everywhere and of course street stalls selling some really cool stuff unlike the shitty stalls in Bangkok. Street performers also did their thing and people released those paper candle lantern thingamajiggas into the night sky. We also found a lady cooking up fresh pad Thai on the street for 25 baht (not even $1!) Along with a Singha beer this was a quality dinner.

After seeing 5 year olds fly around on scooters in Chiang Mai we thought it was time to try our luck! We hired a scooter (Rose juniour) for a 24 hour period which cost us 100 baht ($4). Don't worry mum we lashed out and got 80 baht ($3) insurance just incase! Oh and we quickly discovered that going faster was much more stable and safer! :) The only worrying thing was seeing a few tourists with bandaged limbs... The scooter was a blast and very handy as it allowed us to visit a few tourist attractions 5-10kms out of town. These included visiting a temple on sundown, a waterfall and the pai canyon. Pai is also known for its very cold and fresh mornings which was a nice change from muggy Bangkok. With a few hours left on our scooter rental we woke up early to see the sun rise and to visit the natural hot springs for a cleansing dip! The springs are 80 degrees at the top where the locals like to boil their eggs (even though there us a big sign saying don't boil eggs in the springs!) We found a nice flowing pool midway down the springs which was perfect to watch the steam rise up and listen to the birds go about their morning duties. And best of all we had the entire place to ourselves except for one Thai man who told us he comes every morning for a swim and to exercise, who could blame him! After our dip we returned our scooter, no skin or paint lost and jumped on a mini bus back to Chiang Mai. I do believe this is where the game of 'corners' originated as the road is ridiculously bendy. Add this plus a crazy driver and you get a very interesting trip. It would normally take a sane driver 5 hours to do this trip but our driver clearly aimed for the 2.5 hour mark! Not to mention that he had a cold and sniffed/snorted 8,587 times on our way back to Chiang Mai! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! We checked back into the brilliant Sri Pat guesthouse for one more night before heading south to Phuket. The staff at Sri Pat were wonderful and the 3 girls running the show (noi, nan & soi) made sure our stay was enjoyable and that we became fluent with our thai phrases.